Justice Gareth John Lugar-Mawson adjourned the trial upon application by Simon Farrell, QC, appearing with Sheikh Noordin bin Sheikh Mohammad for the defendants, during the scheduled resumption of the trial in the High Court yesterday.

The application for adjournment was made on the grounds that Ramzidah was suffering from an acute viral upper respiratory tract infection with symptoms of fever, cough, sore throat and blocked nose.

She produced a medical certificate for a sick leave until today. The defence further submitted that Haji Nabil had been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and was suffering from numbness in his hands.

Jonathan Caplan, QC, appearing for the Public Prosecutor, submitted that what Ramzidah was going through is unpleasant but unfortunately, it is something that everyone suffers from intermittently. He proposed for the court to at least allow the prosecution to open their case before granting any adjournment.

Caplan highlighted that this trial was already fixed for hearing since October 2018, and that there has been a number of pre-trial reviews since then. Between the defendants’ first appearance in court on July 23, 2018 up until the time when Farrell was admitted on February 11 this year, not much work has been carried out by the defence.

He further submitted that the prosecution would be calling 84 witnesses, and since there had been no admissions or agreements to any issues, the prosecution will have to formally prove its case by calling all these witnesses, mainly for the purpose of tendering documents and testifying on the procedures in place.

The court accepted that Ramzidah was unwell based on the medical certificate produced. The trial will resume again for further hearing tomorrow.